and we don’t have to look very far to find it. Actually, I’m looking at it right now because it’s on my screen. But we can find it anywhere… on our books, on our shelves, under our beds, on our plants, even on our pizza. At least I had some on mine. I’m a slow eater, I guess. Or maybe it’s just time to vacuum again. Anyway, Staubis all around us and no, it’s not love.It’s dust. And Staub is a really good word for dust. I don’t know… this sudden ending on b just kind of mirrors the “suffocating-ness” that a lot of Staub can have. I don’t know how to explain it but at least to meStaub sounds the part and that’s why I never had trouble remembering it. What? Because I’m a native speaker? Oh, I guess that helps, too. Anyway, let’s look at some examples.

In order to limit the fine dust pollution in Berlin, the so called Umweltplakette has been introduced.(Only “clean” cars get it and without it you are not allowed to drive into the inner city… or you will be heavily fined).

Seriously!! Why isn’t there a norm for freakin’ Staubsaugerbeutel? Germany has a DIN-norm for everything. Even for stool… What? There isn’t one for stool?!?! What the hell am I making an effort for every morni… anyway, I digest… uh… I mean digress.

We’ve seen a lot of compounds but there’s also a bunch of verbs based on Staub. Einstaubenand verstauben are about the process of collecting dust and abstauben (and entstauben) about the removal.

Cool, so that’s Staub and it’s definitely a good word to remember. For me, it’s the sound that helps… what? Native … oh whatever. So if the sound alone doesn’t cut it, maybe the history helps. And there’s actually a few surprise connections waiting for us.

Staub comes from the verb stieben, and stiebenis pretty much what dust does when you blow on it:

fly up and around suddenly and quickly in a crazy fashion.

It’s not completely clear where this verb comes from but one theory traces it back to the dusty Indo-European root *dheu, which brought us English words like dumb,damp,typhoon and … drumroll… dust, in German the German words Dunst (a light fog, a haze, a mist), Dampf(steam), Duft (scent) or taub (deaf, numb). Wow, what a crazy range. But all these words actually share one common idea – the idea of a cloud. Let’s see: clouds are often made of water and can make you wet. That gives us damp, Dunst, Duft and Dampf, A cloud can also darken your vision and senses, so there we got dumb, taub and deaf. And clouds can consist of little particles that fly around like crazy, which is the connection to typhoon. Of course the Indo-Europeans didn’t know a thing about particles. But think of a flock of birds. Or of the spark of a camp fire when you throw a new log into it. As I said, it’s not 100% certain that stiebencomes from this root, but it would make a lot of sense. Anyway, the core of stieben is to fly up and around like crazy and so Staub is “the one that flies up like crazy.” And there are actually a few more words in that family.

Bestäuben is the German word for to pollinate – the bees inflict “dust” on the flower. A Zerstäuber is an atomizer or vaporizer, the thing that turns the perfume from a liquid into a cloud of little drips, a Schneegestöber is a combination of a lot of snow coming down with a lot of wind. And last but not least, there’s the verb stöbernwhich is about aimlessly foraging through stuff.

Especially in old book stores stöberndefinitely involves a lot of Staub.

And that’s it for today. This was our look at Staub.It means dust, it might actually be related to dust and in either case it comes from the idea of particles flying up in a crazy fashion. Take a look at the vocab section to review all the words of today and get some extras. And as always, if you have any questions or suggestions just leave me a comment. I hope you enjoyed it and see you next time.

** vocab **

der Staub – the duststaubig – dusty

einstauben, verstauben – to collect dust (“verstauben” is also used for mind sets)verstaubt – dusty (also in the abstract sense of “reactionary”)

entstauben – thoroughly remove the dust off of somethingabstauben – to dust off, also: to snatch in the sense of to get

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Good catch. It usually does mean weird but there are exceptions. This is one… this ironical “very funny”

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irgendkatze

Der Ball prallte vom Torwart direkt for Thomas’ Füße gefaustet. Der brauchte nur noch abstauben. The ball bounced right in front of Thomas’ feet; he just needed to nick it. (the dictionary dict.cc suggested that “to sponge” would also work in this context. Is that true?? Natives speakers, assemble)

Both nick and sponge seem a bit off to be here, although nick is better. Nick has the connotation of stealing something by grabbing it.Sponge means literally ‘clean with a sponge’ and metaphorically sponge off means ‘take money or goods from someone else without an intention to return’. So you sponge the dust off a table, or a friend might keep sponging beers off you at the bar.

I would suggest the word ‘snatch’ or ‘pluck’ here, as they imply a quick and easy motion.

Thanks for the input. Seems like this is a tricky one to translate. What is the best word to express that you get something without doing much of the work, just by chance. “abstauben” works in sports but also for example for shopping on a flee market or something. or in a sale.

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NYCRedak

Now that I review what I said, I am a bit unhappy with myself for the game example. Pluck doesn’t work in this case because it implies hands. I think you will be happy to hear that we have a similar phrase for finishing something, or getting good deals, and that is…. Clean up!

“The other players made beautiful offensive passes and Thomas just had to clean up.” This implies he made a goal

“I went to the flea market last Sunday and I really cleaned up! I got 2000 fleas for 1$!”

“I went to the fair and cleaned up on giveaways”

NOT “I went to the fair and cleaned up giveaways.” Unless you really like to tidy up.

This can’t often be used as a direct translation though, because you can’t clean something in particular up… that just means you are cleaning it or putting it away. You need that extra preposition. Abstauben seems pretty tough, I think the particular context matters a lot. I can think of a lot of ways to say it that work in some contexts but not others… luck out, make off with, clean up, make out like a bandit (THIS IS NOT ABOUT KISSING)… I would probably combine one of these with the appropriate action, if I wanted to stress the luck factor.

“I really lucked out on that last golf hole green, I just had to tap it in.”

“I got lucky at the fire sale yesterday, I managed to snatch up the last Electric Fireplace 9000 Supreme!”

BTW A third metaphorical sense for clean up is also making a lot of money.

We really cleaned up at the convention yesterday, we sold all of our ‘English is ridikyulas’ t-shirts!”

Not confusing at all. It’s great to have some more examples in context. And “to clean up” is REALLY close, and it even has to do with cleaning. Just perfect. There was one example though that I wouldn’t translate with “abstauben”.. the one with the golf hole. “abstauben” would not make sense here because even though you were super lucky you still were the one who brought the ball there. “abstauben” implies someone else’s work. Like… with giveaways you just gotta go and take ’em while others manufactured them, set them on display and so on.

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Anonymous

Re. Feinstaub, “fine dust” does not sound idiomatic to me. I’d go for “particulate matter”, but that might confuse some people?

Die Feinstaubbelastung in Berlin zu reduzieren, gibt es die sogenannte Umweltplakette. In order to reduce pollution from particulate matter in Berlin, the so-called Umweltplakette has been introduced.

I have to say that your blog is heaps cool. In fact the more that I learn about German the more I think about how cool the language actually is. English just seems to be too sophisticated to have a word like Staubsauger,

Dammit. I just remembered that someone told me this not so long ago and I looked it up and everything. Get out of my brain “due”. “Undurchichtig” passt gut, aber “Bedeutung” nicht so wirklich. Die Bedeutung der Phrase ist ja klar. Was nicht offensichtlich ist, ist, warum die Phrase diese Bedeutung hat.

What is the best word to express that you get something without doing much of the work, just by chance. “abstauben” works in sports but also for example for shopping on a flee market or something. or in a sale…..

How about to snap it up …for the shopping context?

I came across your blog through a German Adjectives for Dummies search on google … one happy dummy here ;-)

I would translate it as “the ball rebounded from the goalkeeper straight to Thomas’ feet. He just had to tap it in” “Nick “doesn’t really work here, its more usually used in sports like golf or snooker.Nick as a verb is used though as in ” he nicked the ball from the keeper”. Sponge doesn’t work at all

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Ruth

It should be “direkt vor Thomas’ Füße”, shouldn’t it? Not “direkt for Thomas’ Füße”. I agree that “tap it in” is the usual English expression. “Tap in” is also used as a noun – a goal scored so easily. “Poke it in” might be heard occasionally, especially if it was a “toe poke”. There’s an interesting website – languagecaster.com – “Learning English through football”. Any chance of a “Deutsch lernen durch Fußball” corner here?